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Question does the C(rew) D(ecent) V(ehicle), once it is time to go and leave mars will it act as a single stage to orbit or is there another lander that is used to do that function or is it the E(arth) R(eturn) V(ehicle) that is destine for this role?
I am looking at how many launches and how much is waste for the designs.
If such a scenario could be successfully done with this architecture (CDV and ERV) then the ERV would be the return vehicle.
The CDV would be a stay-behind vehicle, designed to be suitable for use later (as the basis for a research settlement structure).
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Commodore, Mars Direct entails that all the return fuel is made, and the ERV checked, before the crewed hab is launched. So that could never happen. Ofcourse, any number of things could go wrong, but the same could be said of NASA's DRM plan.
Including a catastrophic reactor failure, which is not a problem using mainly tried and true technologies, as MD would.
Mars Direct consists of the bare minumum of hardware you could get away with, while keeping the crew safe. So if you wanted something with more redundancy, you would have to spend a lot more, but you end up with diminishing returns. Also, by adding redundancy you may also inherently increase risk (by relying on extra docking procedures, etc.). Such is the case with the Design Reference Mission, IMO.
Exactly and dead on Michael!
I might add that DRM relies on technologies that may never be developed due to the costs anyway (as very very similar plans have been deemed too expensive before).
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It is not just the lower gravity of the Moon that makes it the best place to create industrial capacity but the capability to have power generated. The Moon with peaks that are almost permanently in sunlight are a solar power paradise. It is power and especially electrical that has made our civilisation what it is and the Moon has in abundance all that is needed to easily make cheap solar panels that are very "hard" when it comes to radiation. There are Science projects that have it planned for automated Rovers to make lines of these panels solely from lunar soils. Its all that abundant SiO2.
Another advantage is that the Moon is sprinkled with Iron not much except in certain concentrated areas but this allows us to build what scientists call smart bricks. If we collect Lunar regolith and crush it into a mold then heat it. The mold will release oxygen and any other free gases. leaving us with a structural component and if passed through a powerful magnetic source the brick becomes polarised. This allows us to create a very good structural component which helps to right itself and is easily picked up by a robot arm.
Still it is when we go to find the PGMs that the Moon will either pay for itself or at the minimum to defray costs the same with the use of Helium 3.
I don't mean to pick on your posts Grypd, but it was conviently placed.
Understand, I would very much like to go to the Moon as a personal desire, but I realise it's worthless in many of the materials necessary for anything but building solar panels, buildings (for what purpose besides as research stations?) and He3 - which we don't need right now - and may never need.
I would love to see a series of scientific missions to the far-side (oh would I - why is it apparently different that the near side sites? are there clues in the mineralogy that explain why it's appearance is different? what was the evolutionary history of the far-side? I could go on and on).
But I suppose that will be money well spent somehow, and I retire from offering information that furthers clarifies objections to going to the Moon.
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Locked due to crash, if you can read this, you should be able to access the rest.
Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
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